Land & Water 
June 13, 1 91 8 
through the use of historical parallels during this war. Of 
the two extremes in the use of historical parallels it is far 
better to exaggerate their use than to neglect it. Since there 
is no methodical study, of history in our Universities and 
no study at all outside the Universities, save on the part 
of private individuals, the tendency is to follow historical 
parallel far too blindly in very well-known cases and to neglect 
altogether the great mass of less known cases. 
OA good example of this was to be seen during the Austro- 
German advance through Poland three years ago. Because 
Napoleon had invaded Russia and had thereby destroyed 
himself, people were perpetually comparing one campaign 
with the other. There was nothing in common. The 
Austro-German advance was undertaken with full aiid 
constant industrial supply against a force which had ex- 
hausted its industrial supply and could produce no more. 
It was an advanbe in Une between the Bukovina and the 
Baltic. Napoleon's advance was an advance in column. It 
was a slow advance by repeated salients reduced. Napoleon's 
advance depended upon such rapidity as the means of that 
time commanded. When Napoleon reached the end of his 
effort at Moscow he had about one-tenth of his forces remaining 
directly under his command. His hnes of communication 
were single or double ; enormously extended and in terms 
of time might be measured as from one month to two. The 
Austro-German advance went not one-third of the way. 
Its lines of communication were in terms of time two or three 
days. Its forces in hand at the end of its efforts quite two- 
thirds of that with which it began them. Its communications 
were absolutely secure and rapid, and, above all, it fought 
at the end of its effort with all available modern weapons 
while its enemy was denuded of these. Even so, the Austro- 
German effort failed. It came to a standstill, though 
pohtically, and much later, it broke up under the strain what 
had been the Russian State. But, at any rate, there was 
never any parallel between tliis business arid the busi- 
ness of 1812. You might as well try to discover a 
parallel between the affair of the Dardanelles and the Siege 
of Trey. 
False Parallel of the Marne 
Now after the latest German victory, somethmg of the 
same sort is apparent. Because the word "Marne" has 
come up again in the Press, one has acres of stuff written upon 
the supposed parallel between 1914 and 1918. Chateau- 
Thierry, where the enemy failed to cross on the night of 
June 1st, is on the Marne. Jaulgonne, where the Americans 
destroyed their attempt to cross again two days later, is on 
the Marne. The enemy exploitation of his success upon the 
27th of May, north of the Aisne, reached the Marne. The 
word ' ' Marne" therefore, is used much as the word ' ' Russia" 
was used in the first case. It suggests a parallel. No par- 
allel exists. 
In the battle of the Marne in 1914 the enemy came on in 
superior numbers, but with an open flank, in the attempt to 
finish the war at once, and under an erroneous impression 
of our Allied concentration. He thought we were most of us 
in the East. He therefore left his Western flank open, and 
suffered a defeat. He had somewhat over 70 divisions, 
a number quite insufficient to hold a complete hne to the 
sea, and it was on that very account that an open flank 
existed. He was marching without any thought of en- 
trenchment for the moment. The AUies were retiring 
without any appreciable use of entrenchment either. The 
whole thing was manoeuvre and manoeuvre, with plenty of 
ground. 
The great action of to-day is not manoeuvre, but the breach 
of works. It is conducted by a force the total of which is 
over 200 divisions, and, even allowing for the shrinking of the 
establishment in a division, it is more than double what was 
at work \n 1914. It presents no flank. It is but one of a 
series of violent and successful batterings-in of that defen- 
sive wall in the west which the Allies must attempt to main- 
tain, until the balance of numbers is redressed by the appear- 
ance of sufficient American forces. 
The two situations — 1914 and 1918 — are as different as 
the difference between fencing and wrestling. They are as 
different as the difference between the reduction of a fortress 
and a fight in the open field. They are as different as the 
difference between heading off a quarry, and meeting that 
quarry with a weapon. 
What we have to consider in the present situation is plainly 
the chances of a numerical inferior struggling against the 
continued pressure of a' numerical superior, who exercises 
that pressure with continued emphasis in point after point, 
and with the object of making it dominant within a given 
time. The Allies are numerically inferior. Clemenceau has 
said they are inferior by about 50 divisions, which is a round 
number. Let us call it 46, which is pretty well exact. Their 
inferiority is due entirely and upiquely to the disajjpear- 
ance of the Russian State under political and financial in- 
fluences, which it will be interesting to describe. years hence, 
but which are, for the purposes of this battle, mere past 
history. 
American Units 
As against the West the Central Empires were always 
numericallj' superior, and even vastly superior. The balanc- 
ing power of Russia having disappeared, the West fights 
against enormous odds, and is, so long as those odds remain, 
on the defensive. The odds can be redressed, unless the 
enemy achieves his decision first, by the appearance of 
America in the field to a degree of force which shall redress 
the balance. As yet, even by the embrigading of American 
units, the new factor does not come near to redressing the 
balance. It will be a matter of from four to six months. 
Within that four or six months the Austrians and the Germans 
must win or lose. 
The embrigading of the American units with French and 
British divisions was an exceedingly important and states- 
manlike decision. What it means is this : That instead of 
the American divisions fighting under their own leaders and 
as a separate army, with all the advantage in prestige and 
honour attaching to such independent action, battalions, 
and even smaller units, such as machine-gun companies, etc., 
have been put imder the command of French and British 
divisional generals and fed into the general Allied forces. 
This has been done on account of the sudden , and terrible 
strain' imposed upon our lesser numbers since the German 
attack of March 21st. It has been very wisely done. For if 
the Allies had had to wait until the American force had 
developed as a whole, the battle might, in the interval, have 
been lost. 
Not only was the judgment wise, and the self-sacrifice in 
the highest degree patriotic and chivalrous, but the event 
has given it more than a sufficient excuse. The presence of 
American units thus scattered among the French and British 
forces has been of immediate weight. They have the advan- 
tage of zeal, of industry, of a very sincere desire to acquire 
these novel lessons of war, of rapid perfection, especially in 
technical things and of simple and direct will. I myself saw 
and heard in one of their principal artillery camps the effect 
of all these moral things, and could judge them from what 
their Allies and instructors said of them a month before the 
offensive began. 
The work of these American units now mixed in with the 
Allied divisions promiscuously has appeared in many fields, 
but there are three points this week where they may be 
especially studied. 
Those three points are Chateau-Thierry, where the enemy 
made his determined attempt to force the Marne obstacle on 
June 1st and June 2nd ; Jaulgonne, >vhere he made his 
second very determined but equally futile attempt on 
June 3rd ; and the valley of the Clignon, where the Franco- 
American forces counter-attacked with conspicuous success 
on June 6th. 
In the first case, it was largely by the help of the American 
machine-gun section that in the street fighting in that 
part of the town which lies south of the river the attempt 
to cross was held after the main stone bridge had been blown 
up and the pontoon bridges alone remained. 
The old three-arched stone bridge of Chateau-Thierry had 
remained intact, though, of course, mined by the French 
engineers, while the Germans poured across after their 
successful occupation of the northern bank at 9 o'clock in 
the evening of Saturday, June ist. They also threw pontoon 
bridges across the 156 yards of river. " The idea that they 
meant to stop at the Marne "according to plan" and that 
they then turned westward (as, in fact, they did), .also 
"according to plan," is nonsense. They made everv possible 
preparation for forcing the Marne and going on southward. 
When their first thousand had got across the stone bridge, 
while other columns were pouring across the pontoon bridges 
and while a strong column was srill in march across the stone 
bridge, the latter was blown up. But the numbers of Germans 
already across the river and pressing forward by the pontoons 
was so large that the Franco-American forces in the town to 
the south were very hard pressed. The situation was saved 
in great measure by the excellence of the newlv trained 
American machine-gunners. These, with their French com- 
rades, threw back the forces on the left bank of the river, 
shot down great numbers pouring back over the bridges, and 
checked the whole affair. They were instrumental in pre- 
venting the crossing of the Marne when that (eat was appar- 
ently most fiossible, June ist and June 2nd— that is. before 
the Allies had time to bring up sufficient stopping power. 
